Gaming Ads: Fujitsu Interactive and Galoob

Fujitsu was founded in Japan in 1935 and is still in business today but is not involved in gaming any longer. It made Japan's first computer in 1954 and during the '80s manufactured its well known FM (Fujitsu Micro) series of computers, and continued the FM Towns system through most of the '90s. While Fujitsu Interactive published many games in Japan for its own computers, it also had a branch in San Francisco to distribute games in North America. However, I cannot find any games in that market beyond the one I have an ad for that Fujitsu was involved in. The ad is for Battle Arena Toshinden 2 for Windows 95, and the company GameBank also appears on the ad. GameBank helped Microsoft bring Windows 95 games to Japan.

Founded in 1957 as Lewis Galoob Toys, Galoob is primarily a toy company as the name would suggest and is today part of Hasbro. I previously mentioned Galoob in the Camerica and Codemasters ad posts as its primary involvement in video games was as a distributor of the Game Genie in North America. I'll repeat some of the Camerica post about the Game Genie here since it is relevant:

The Game Genie was a device created by Codemasters that allowed users to alter their video games with cheat codes. Nintendo viewed the device as a copyright violation and sued both Camerica and its U.S. distributor Galoob. During the lawsuit sales were halted in the U.S. but not in Canada which is what the ad you'll see thanking Canada is in regards to. Ultimately, Nintendo lost the lawsuit and Galoob would go on to release Game Genies for the Super NES and Game Boy as well.

The Canada ad mentioned in the quote can be found in the Camerica ads album. Not surprisingly, all seven of the Galoob ads I have are for the Game Genie.

Galoob albums: Facebook - Google Photos

After leaving Flickr I opted to group publishers with a single ad in the same album so Fujitsu Interactive no longer has its own album but its one ad does appear on this page.

Gaming Ads: Camerica

Camerica was a Canadian company founded in 1988. It published games in North America for Codemasters during the 8-bit era as every one of the games it released is for the Nintendo Entertainment System, though without Nintendo's official seal of quality. We'll take a look at Codemasters in a few weeks where some of the same games will be seen, including the popular game Micro Machines that is based on the toys of the same name from Galoob.

A unique feature of Camerica's marketing is that it used a teenage game player to promote its games. While there were no eSports at the time, the Nintendo World Championships were held across the United States in 1990. Thor Aackerlund was named champion in his age group and shortly thereafter was hired as a spokesperson for Camerica. His photo, alongside positive quotations, appeared in many of the publisher's print advertisements.

Camerica also released a variety of game controllers and the Nintendo Entertainment System version of the Game Genie. The Game Genie was a device created by Codemasters that allowed users to alter their video games with cheat codes. Nintendo viewed the device as a copyright violation and sued both Camerica and its U.S. distributor Galoob. During the lawsuit sales were halted in the U.S. but not in Canada which is what the ad you'll see thanking Canada is in regards to. Ultimately, Nintendo lost the lawsuit and Galoob would go on to release Game Genies for the Super NES and Game Boy as well.

Camerica albums: Facebook - Google Photos